It’s been a rough year for Middle Eastern PC security experts. Not long ago, we had Stuxnet and Flame. Stuxnet was a cyber-attack that was likely launched by Israel and the United States in a joint operation. The virus specifically targeted the computers used by Iran’s nuclear system. Then, Flame targeted hundreds of thousands of PCs across the entire Middle East.

Now, it looks like we’ve got one more virus to keep track of. Late last week, it was reported that a ‘Mahdi’ virus is affecting computers across the Middle East. Just like Flame, it logs keystrokes, operates webcams, records audio, steals files, and does all sorts of other nefarious tasks.

Fortunately, the attack has so far been contained to Iran, Afghanistan, and other nearby countries. And, it’s spreading via traditional methods of infection. Instead of infecting users through script injection or other modern virus techniques, Mahdi is sent through emails as a rogue attachment. It’s commonly disguised as a PowerPoint file or a Word document, for example, which generally puts users at ease.

Of course, even the simplest viruses have the potential to do lots of damage. It’s 2012, and people might not be watching out for rogue Trojan horse email attachments.

If you don’t want to live in fear of your webcam watching you sleep, then you need to protect yourself from Mahdi as soon as possible. Try downloading PC Cleaner Pro to wipe malware from your computer and speed it up in the process.